Science and Tech

Exclusive: 42% of CEOs say that artificial intelligence could destroy humanity in 5 to 10 years

New York ( Business) — Many senior business executives are seriously concerned that artificial intelligence (AI) could pose an existential threat to humanity in the not-too-distant future.

42% of CEOs surveyed at the Yale CEO Summit this week say AI has the potential to destroy humanity five to 10 years from now, according to results shared exclusively with .

“It’s pretty dark and scary,” Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld said in a phone interview, referring to the results.

The survey, conducted at a virtual event hosted by Sonnenfeld’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute, found little consensus on the risks and opportunities related to artificial intelligence.

Sonnenfeld said the survey included responses from 119 CEOs from a cross-section of companies, including Walmart CEO Doug McMillion, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincy, leaders from IT companies like Xerox and Zoom, as well as CEOs from pharmaceuticals, media and manufacturing.

Business leaders were sharply divided on how dangerous AI is to civilization.

While 34% of CEOs said AI could destroy humanity in ten years and 8% said it could happen in five years, 58% said it could never happen and they’re “not worried.”

In a separate question, Yale found that 42% of CEOs surveyed say the potential catastrophe from AI is overblown, while 58% say it’s not overblown.

The results come just weeks after dozens of AI industry leaders, academics and even some celebrities sign a statement warning of the risk of “extinction” of AI.

That statement, signed by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of AI” and top executives from Google and Microsoft, urged society to take steps to protect itself from the dangers of artificial intelligence.

“Mitigate the extinction risk of AI should be a global priority, along with other societal risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the statement said.

alert about AI

Hinton recently decided to raise awareness about the technology he helped develop after worrying about how clever it has become.

“I’m just a scientist who suddenly realized that these things are getting smarter than us,” Hinton told ‘s Jake Tapper in May. “I want to sound the alarm and say that we should seriously worry about how we stop these things from controlling us.”

Hinton told that if the AI ​​”gets to be much smarter than us, it will be very good at manipulating it,” even “bypassing the restrictions we put on it.”

While business leaders debate the dangers of AI, CEOs surveyed by Yale showed some agreement about the benefits of the technology.

Only 13% of CEOs felt that the potential opportunities of AI are exaggerated, while 87% said they are not.

CEOs indicated that AI will have the greatest transformative impact in three key sectors: healthcare (48%), professional services/IT (35%) and media/digital (11%).

As some inside and outside the tech world debate doomsday scenarios around AI, there are likely to be more immediate repercussions, such as risks from misinformation and job losses.

talk without listening

Sonnenfeld, the Yale management guru, told that business leaders fall into five different camps when it comes to AI.

The first group, according to Sonnenfeld, includes “curious creators” who are “naive believers” who hold that anything that can be done should be done.

“They’re like Robert Oppenheimer, before the bomb,” Sonnenfeld said, referring to the American physicist known as the “father of the atomic bomb.”

Then there are the “euphoric true believers” who see only the good in technology, Sonnenfeld said.

Highlighting the AI ​​boom sparked by the popularity of ChatGPT and other new tools, Sonnenfeld described “commercial speculators” eagerly seeking to profit from new technology. “They don’t know what they’re doing, but they go for it,” he says.

And then there are the two camps that advocate a kind of crackdown on AI: the alarmist activists and the advocates of global governance.

“These five groups talk without listening to each other, with righteous indignation,” says Sonnenfeld.

The lack of consensus on how to approach AI highlights that even the captains of industry are still trying to come to terms with the risks and benefits of what could be a real game changer for society.

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